FOR a story so widely known and loved as
"Heidi," it seems singular that so little is
generally known concerning the author.
Librarians, teachers and parents have been con-
stantly put to it to answer inquiries regarding
Johanna Spyri, but beyond the fact that she lived
in Switzerland, very little has been available in the
way of biographical data. A book ¹ recently trans-
lated from the German of Anna Ulrich supplies
some facts regarding her early life.

From this book we learn that Johanna Spyri
drew the scenes of "Heidi" and others of her Swiss
stories from recollections of her own childhood, and
that of her brothers, sisters and playmates. For
many years, however, these memories were locked
up within her own brain, and it was not until middle
life that she began to set them down on paper. In
writing of these early days, Anna Ulrich, her life-
time friend, says:

"The house where Johanna Spyri was born, the
doctor's house in Hirzel, seven miles distant from

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